


nail care

by lizardlesbian



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternian costumes, Autistic Karkat Vantas, M/M, POV Second Person, Trans Male Character, come on y'all, how was that not a tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-04
Updated: 2016-10-04
Packaged: 2018-08-19 13:58:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8211035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizardlesbian/pseuds/lizardlesbian
Summary: Trolls have a thing for nail polish.





	

Trolls have a thing for nail polish. Well, "nail polish" is probably not the best term for it, but it's the closest thing you can come up with that's not the weirdly articulate Alternian words Kanaya first used to describe it to him. It would be like saying "I love all fruits" when in fact you want to talk about tomatoes, and yes, tomatoes are fruits at the end of the day, but that still doesn't mean most people are gonna be confused.

"It's a sort of protective coat for their claws, which has the specific task to strenghten the keratin and make sure they don't nick them in combat," Rose Lalonde, sister dearest and local smartass would have said instead. "I can't quite understand what it's made of, and Kanaya refuses to say, but I know for a fact that it's not only important for protective reasons. Some trolls wear their own blood colour on their claws as a signifier, a way to let their opponent know which blood cast just took away their life. Other trolls, though, prefer to show off the colour of their matesprit's blood. It's a symbolic gesture of trust, a way to say they would never hurt them and to dedicate their victims to their flushed significant other." And of course, she would totally take the occasion to adjust a lock of her hair behind her ear, revealing perfectly manicured jade nails.

(Which is bullshit, because you know for a fact that she bites her nails when no one's around to see. You do too, but yours don't grow back as fast, and so yours end up looking uneven and bad. Also it's simply unfair that she gets better looking nails than you *and* a loving girlfriend, considering you share the exact same genes, what the fuck is up with that Sburb?)

Every troll on the meteor has his own protection coat thing (let's call it "troll nail polish" for brevity's sake), except for Gamzee you suppose, but you can't say for sure since you haven't seen the guy in months, years even. You didn't quite know how to take it when you saw Karkat with it too – until you reminded yourself that Trolls had barely any sense of gender roles, let alone any Earth fuckery and the giant shitpiles cissexism and hypermasculinity are. Were.

You're still working on it, ok.

Karkat usually prefers black troll nail polish, no matter how often Kanaya or Terezi tell him that he's not obliged to anymore. He feels safer like that, he says.

(And how amazing is it that you just get it, that you perfectly understand the clusterfuck of emotions that comes along with it? Sometimes at night, when you're feeling especially pathetic, you wonder if two people as fucked up as you were just meant to be together. Like that puzzle pieces thing, fitting perfectly together with your traumas and rough edges and nightmares and bad coping mechanisms. Learning how to deal with all of it together. Being able to trust someone with so much of yourself and have him it's both scary and wonderful and you don't quite know how to deal with it.)

You think he likes the sensation of it: you see him constantly touch the smooth surface of his claws and tap them against every flat surface on the meteor – when he does it on the metal walls the sound reverberates in a really cool way, so of course you recorded it for your mixes. The problem is, he can't put the nail polish on by himself for shit. He tries, but he always ends up either ruining the nails he has already done or spilling it everywhere or worse, spilling it over himself, which then results in panicked screams and several hours of works trying to wash it off. Usually, Kanaya just ends up doing it for him, holding both of his hands down at the table in the common room and getting to work. Karkat rolls his eyes, but has enough self awareness that it's better to let her do her job. It's fascinating, seeing both of them being so silent. It made you uncomfortable the first times, now you just get your headphones put and watch Kanaya do her magic: the repetitive gesture of it is really relaxing, you can get easily taken by it.

More and more times she has offered to do the same for you. You know it's a trust thing, a way to let you know she cares about you as a friend (and you're grateful for that, because Kanaya is not only you sister's hot girlfriend, but also someone that you've come to respect quite a lot, and it's nice to know the feeling is mutual), but you always refuse. "It's not really a  _me_ thing, ya know?", which of course she doesn't know and neither does Karkat. She raises a eyebrow at you, but drops the subject right away every single time.

Karkat never asks you about it, and you're grateful for that. You hold his hand when you're watching a movie together and you notice his black claws shimmer in the dim light coming from his husktop.

Bro used to buy you make-up and shit like that when you were really small, and never really stopped after you told him you were a boy. He probably wanted to taunt you, you think, or maybe it was a dare. It's not half as bad as most of the things he did to you, but you can't shake off the wrongness of it.

But your datemate's claws look pretty, and you're the tiniest bit jealous. But no one will take you seriously. But—

But maybe healing can come from unexpected things.

"Yo Rose," you ask her the following day, knocking against her door. She's busy writing, but she doesn't look too irritated about being interrupted, so it was probably just one of her fanfictions. "Can I ask you a favour?"

She helps, because she's the best of ectosisters, and that's how you end up with a bottle of nail polish and another of acetone. She alchemized the second one in case you change you mind, because again: Rose Lalonde, best ectosister. She might not get you the way Karkat does, but she's still incredibly important and you trust her on this.

You don't freak out. Not too much, anyway. You take your time, and when you accidentally smear some of it on your thumb you're surprised to discover it doesn't activate your usual panic sequence. You were almost sure it would, and you were ready to drop everything and let go of this shit idea but the liquid is too thick and clear for it to work. It's a good sign, you suppose, it means you're getting better. You can't help but smile when you examine your job: it's nothing like Kanaya's, but they look mad good. Now that you're done with it, it feels more freeing than scary, you're dizzy with joy and you want to laugh.

You can't wait to see Karkat's face when he notices your bright red nails.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I finally managed to write something! Depression who??  
> It's my first time trying out Dave's POV, I hope I didn't do a shit job.


End file.
